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Littergram let off the trade mark hook by Instagram

A previous article on this reading room explained the pressure anti-litter app Littergram were under from photo sharing giant Instagram to change their name.

Facebook owned Instagram issued a case against the anti-litter app Littergram, which invites people to share pictures of rubbish on their Smartphone and report it to their council.

The claim urged them to change their name, which Instagram deemed too similar to their registered trade mark otherwise a claim of trade mark infringement will be issued against them.

After correspondence between Facebook and Littergram owner Danny Lucas, Facebook have dropped their case against the app allowing them to continue to use the name so as long as they do not try to claim trade mark rights over it.

This news was delivered to Littergram via a letter which wished the app success but in turn reserved the right to take further action if the position with Littergram was to change.

Danny Lucas welcomes this news stating "We applaud Facebook for taking this admirable approach and thank them very much for lifting a weight from our shoulders that will allow us to focus on the job in hand."

This is a nice example of the big guys giving the little guys a bit of a break, something that does not happen very often.

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